Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure equal employment opportunities for disabled people in Newport West constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
This Government is committed to improving the lives of disabled people and delivering the most ambitious disability reform agenda in a generation. DWP delivers a range of national programmes, as well as initiatives in partnership with the health system, to support disabled people to stay in or move into work. These include the Work and Health Programme and Intensive Personalised Employment Support.
In Jobcentre Plus throughout the Newport West constituency, Work Coaches, aided by Disability Employment Advisers, tailor support to claimant’s individual needs, taking account of local provision, training, and employment opportunities.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the impact on the employment rate in Newport West constituency of the Welsh-based financial services company Admiral closing its Newport office.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made.
Where redundancies do occur, the Department for Work and Pensions’ Rapid Response Service (RRS) works to address the effects of job losses on individuals and on the local community. The RRS work with employers to deliver flexible, timely, and appropriate support for them and their employees and help individuals secure a job or move into self-employment quickly and ideally without the need to claim welfare benefits.
The RRS is available to private and public sector employers. Third sector employers are also eligible where the job losses affect paid workers. The RRS support can start when people are under threat of redundancy or during the period of notice.
Where individuals have not found alternative work before they lose their job, RRS support can continue for a further 13 weeks whether they make a claim for benefits or not. This is in addition to the ongoing support provided by DWP for claimants moving them forward in their journey closer to/back into employment.
DWP has provided additional support to help people into work since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, through our Plan for Jobs, including recruiting an additional 13,500 Work Coaches to provide support to unemployed people to find a job, and launching new schemes like Kickstart, Restart and Sector Work Academies Programmes.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she has taken to increase health and safety enforcement in response to the omicron variant of covid-19.
Answered by Chloe Smith
In 2021/22 the Government provided an additional £14m to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to continue its’ programme of spot checks on compliance, to ensure businesses are protecting workers from COVID-19. The focus of the compliance checks is reviewed and adapted in line with Government advice and the different approaches taken in England, Scotland and Wales; most recently, in response to the omicron variant.
Businesses must still control the risks and review and update their risk assessments, taking into the account their statutory obligations, the public health guidance in their own nation, and the requirement to consult their workers.
Since the start of the pandemic, HSE has carried out more than 380,000 interventions to check how businesses are implementing measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19 at their sites. Where contraventions are identified and to ensure standards are being met, inspectors continue to take enforcement action, in line with HSE’s published Enforcement Policy Statement
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the impact of the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 on support for disabled people in Newport West constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
As set out in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, Newport West will benefit from UK Government support that applies in all parts of Wales, from targeted UK Government investment in the local area, and from funding that the UK Government provides to the Welsh Government.
The UK Government set out a range of policies that will apply in all parts of Wales. This includes increasing the National Living Wage, cutting the Universal Credit taper rate, increasing the Universal Credit work allowances, investing in R&D, funding the commitment to recruit additional police officers, and freezing fuel duty. These will help a wide range of people including disabled people.
In addition, the Government published the National Disability Strategy in July 2021 which aims to break down barriers and extend opportunities for disabled people in all parts of the UK. The strategy respects and showcases the diversity of approaches across the UK on disability, in relevant policy areas which are devolved. Reflecting those devolved areas, each nation has - or is in the process of developing - its own disability strategy.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the number of households in Newport West affected by the benefit cap.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Statistics for the number of households receiving Housing Benefit or Universal Credit, who were subject to the Benefit Cap, by Parliamentary Constituency (including Newport West), are published every three months and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of her Department’s progress on rectifying state pension underpayments to eligible married women in Newport West.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The latest information published by DWP in October 2021 is available on gov.uk and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-pension-underpayments-progress-on-cases-reviewed-to-30-september-2021/state-pension-underpayments-progress-on-cases-reviewed-to-30-september-2021)
The government does not collect geographical data in relation to State Pension underpayments.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme on the disability employment gap in Newport West constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Reliable data on the disability employment gap at constituency level is only available using annual estimates due to sample sizes. An initial assessment of disability employment following the closure of the furlough scheme in September 2021 will not be available until Spring 2022. This is when Annual Population Survey data, including the period October to December 2021, will be released. However, it will be some time before a full assessment can be made.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the State Pension in tackling pensioner poverty in Newport West constituency; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to alleviating levels of pensioner poverty.
In the latest statistics there were 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty, after housing costs, compared to 2009/10.
The State Pension is the foundation of support for older people, providing the basis on which people can build additional private savings for their retirement. Under this Government, the full yearly amount of the basic State Pension is now over £2,050 higher than in 2010.
In addition, Pension Credit provides invaluable financial support for the most vulnerable pensioners and is a passport to a range of other benefits
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment has she made of the impact of universal credit deductions on the risk of poverty among benefit claimants living and working in Newport West constituency.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
No recent assessment has been made of the potential impact of Universal Credit deductions on the risk of poverty among benefit claimants.
To enable households to retain more of their Universal Credit award towards day to day living costs we have reduced the normal maximum amount that can be deducted from Universal Credit, from 40% of the Universal Credit Standard Allowance, to 30% and from April 2021 to 25%. As a result, there were 792,000 people in May 2021 who potentially have had reduced deductions due to the most recent policy change.
These measures were put in place to support claimants to manage financial difficulties, and other processes are in place to ensure deductions are manageable. Customers can also contact DWP Debt Management if they are experiencing financial hardship to discuss a reduction in their rate of repayment of benefit overpayments, or a temporary suspension, depending on financial circumstances.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the impact of removing the £20 uplift to the standard allowance of universal credit on household budgets in Newport West constituency.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
No such assessments have been made of household budgets in Newport West constituency.
It is not possible to produce a robust estimate of the impact of removing the temporary £20 uplift on household budgets. Projecting the impacts of policies on poverty involves projecting forward the impact of the pandemic on every household’s income which is not possible to do with confidence, not least because the latest comprehensive data on net incomes for households is from 2019-20, before the pandemic began.
This Government is wholly committed to supporting those on low incomes, and continues to do so through many measures, including by spending over £110 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2021/22.
With the success of the vaccine rollout and record job vacancies, our focus now is on continuing to support people into and to progress in work. Our multi-billion-pound Plan for Jobs, which has recently been expanded by £500 million, will help people across the UK to find work and to boost their wages and prospects.
Universal Credit recipients in work can now benefit from a reduction in the Universal Credit taper rate from 63% to 55%, and an increase in the work allowance by £500 per year meaning that working households will be able to keep substantially more of what they earn. These measures effectively represent a tax cut, worth around £2.2bn a year in 2022-23, for the lowest paid in society and will benefit almost two million of the lowest paid workers by £1000 a year on average. We are also increasing the National Living Wage by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour from April 2022.
We recognise that some people may require extra support over the winter, which is why vulnerable households across the country will now be able to access a new £500 million support fund to help them with essentials. The Barnett Formula will apply in the usual way, with the Welsh Government receiving £25m. We understand that the Welsh Government is releasing extra funding from its reserves to target support towards lower income households, providing immediate support for people facing rising living costs this winter.